After several weeks of disruptions to garbage collection in various communities, residents are being assured that efforts to rectify the problems are underway.
Several areas have been beset by delays due to broken down trucks, National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA) bosses said earlier this month.
“The information reaching the Cabinet was to the effect of many more trucks have been in fact deployed to get ahold of the situation in communities and in villages,” Lionel Hurst, the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff, told yesterday’s post-Cabinet press briefing.
Hurst also gave an explanation of why garbage collection in rural communities was worse than in the capital.
“In St John’s there seems not to be a problem, but outside of St John’s, where the routes were unclear to many of those who are operating garbage trucks, they essentially did not enter into the villages,” he said.
For areas still experiencing delays, he pledged that the issue will be resolved shortly.
“There might still be some pockets that have not seen the trucks with the same regularity…but we can assure them that a solution is at hand and that they will see the disappearance of any accumulated garbage within a short period of time,” Hurst said.
Efforts to contact NSWMA on Thursday for more clarification proved unsuccessful.
In May, many residents across Antigua experienced a delay in the collection of household waste.
Early in June, NSWMA Chairman Michael Joseph explained that ageing garbage trucks had been breaking down, while those deployed to fill the gap had subsequently suffered mechanical problems due to the extra workload.
